Okay, so here’s a sentence- the first time I read it a couple weeks ago I understood what was going on, but going over it, for some reason I have no clue what’s going on with a particular cluster of particles.

宿題で時間がないつってんのに、みきちゃんとデートしにいったと聞いたよ。

The translation is written as “Although he’s saying he doesn’t have time due to homework, I heard he went on a date with Miki-chan.”

That’s fine, I get the general sense of what the sentence was intended to mean, but… here’s my problem.

“つってんのに”

How? So the つ is the slang for “という”, but I don’t see how と言ってんのに works. If the use of “のに” was already intended, why would という be conjugated to て form? Shouldn’t it just be つんのに?

Maybe I’m just having a huge brain fart because it made sense to me before, but right now I just cannot get over how this could make sense. If somebody else has answered this question in another thread, just link me and I’ll delete this-I didn’t seem to find anything when I searched the forums.

Oh, and while I’m at it in regards to という, a friend of mine who translates Japanese told me that the difference between というのは and のは was that the use of という is MORE formal, even though it’s more subject to slang than のは? Just want to get a confirmation from other sources to make sure I got that right, cuz it… doesn’t sound right to me.

@Lorentso, yes I’m aware the differences in the two uses for という, but thanks for clarifying just in case! More formal, huh… that’s really weird.

On といってる, I’m pretty sure the ん is the shortened explanatory の, right? So wouldn’t it be といってるん?

And, now that I think about it, what purpose does the に serve in this again? Shouldn’t the two sentences be tied with が instead? Since the purpose is to say “Despite his claim to be doing homework”? What exactly is に targeting? I feel like this might also be another brain fart, because it seemed to make sense beforehand.

And lastly, can you really have an explanatory の and a nominalizing の one after the other? といっているののに. … ?

Okay, I’m an idiot. I knew there was a reason I understood it before =P

I completely forgot のに has a binary function, I was piecing all the particles the wrong way. のに was on me, I forgot. However, the ている shortened to てん is on Tae Kim! He mentions the idea of it as a passing notion once, and then doesn’t mention it again until he used it in that example sentence. What a turd ;u;

From now I’ll likely think of this mix up to remember のに, and likely the same for てん. Thanks to both of you for helping! Soon I’ll have things a little more cemented, and I’ll start spamming Lang-8 with 日記 entries, hahahaha.

Does anyone use the forums here for the same purpose as Lang-8? I don’t know how they’d do it but it doesn’t seem too far fetched.

Oho! Luckily I’ve had an account for years (こういち先生 suggests to make one in textfugu, which I completed back in 2015). However, I think it’d be nicer to study in the community. I like the people here =P

Mami is a Japanese native who lives in Canada. "Mami" is pronounced like "mommy" and she has just became a real mommy! She gathers information for Tofugu and sometimes writes blog posts, too. If you use WaniKani, please join in the "Japanese Only"...

Also, campfire is the place to go when you want to hide from the world. Nothing wrong with it. It’s been referred to as the water cooler section of the forums. We talk about Japanese things, but not much about Japanese language questions.